


Remington

by jsaint34



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, POV Natasha Romanov, steve rogers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 01:23:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6402745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jsaint34/pseuds/jsaint34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kind of but not really a sequel to my one shot Lonely Eyes.  Still centers on Steve and Nat, but this time they are Captain America and Black Widow.  Pre-Civil War, and potentially a chapter in Ghosts of War, but a one shot for now to gauge the response.  Also inspired by a song as was the aforementioned story Lonely Eyes.  Features angst ridden guilt feeling Natasha.  The song is: Remington written by Granger Smith and Frank Rogers.  Appears on Granger's album Remington just released this year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remington

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CarolineCC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarolineCC/gifts), [YourLoyalReader (aletheakatherine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletheakatherine/gifts).



> Apologies in advance for any tears this story may cause to be shed, Steve and Natasha just seem to be perfect for each other, and Age of ULTRON dropped the ball in regards to her character. Black Widow didn't need a romantic sub-plot, and now almost a year later, I wonder why she couldn't have escaped that cage ULTRON locked her in by herself. So, on with the story, I hope you all enjoy, and comments are always appreciated. Thank you. Story contains quotes from the first Avengers movie and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. As always I claim no ownership of characters or quotes from the movies, I'm just a fan writing a story, thanks again to all at Disney/Marvel and all the readers on this website.

Natasha Romanoff is an enigma. Trained to be the ultimate spy since her youth, there was no doubting she was the best in the world at her job. She’s beautiful, deadly, and to the rest of the world, emotionless. The Black Widow is feared and her cool, collected persona keeps anyone from seeing underneath the masks she wears. As an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., she won’t get close to anyone, and Clint seems to be the only person she has ever put any trust in. But not even Clint Barton knows everything, if he even got close enough to see a glimpse of the real Natasha, he wouldn’t know what to make of her. He saved her life from the Red Room, but she still only tells him what she’s comfortable sharing. Underneath all the bravado, the spy still longs for something more, something she tells herself she can never have. Then a blast from the past brought someone new into her life. When he was first found, she’d already heard more than enough fanboy worship from Coulson about this man. But meeting the living legend in person was surreal. When he stepped off the Quinjet she didn’t know what to make of him. 

“Agent Romanoff; Captain Rogers.”

“Hi.”

“Ma’am.”

This was how she first met Captain America. Instantly, she was curious about this man from the past. But as they walked across the deck of the helicarrier she maintained her impassive nature, describing how Coulson reacted when they found him. 

“It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice. I thought Coulson was going to swoon.”

But Steve and Natasha barely had the chance to get to know each other when they were thrust into a war after a maniacal demi-god killed Phil and brought an alien force to Earth. With Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye and the Hulk, the six of them became the Avengers. After the defeat of Loki and the Chitauri, the team went their separate ways. Natasha rejoined S.H.I.E.L.D. with Clint and their partnership was dissolved as Fury decided to partner her up with Steve who had recently joined the organization. Steve still had some adjusting to do to the modern world he had woken into, and Fury thought it best to pair him with the redheaded assassin. At first, though she respected Steve for his leadership, she felt he was treading a perilous road. He may be the greatest soldier in the world, but being a spy was something she wasn’t sure he could really comprehend or prepare for. More often than not, they clashed on mission directives, as well as the best course of action in completing the mission. For two years their partnership was the equivalent of a hot knife cutting through thin ice. Then everything began to fall apart around them. Fury was killed, and S.H.I.E.L.D. was hunting them both for unknown reasons. Suddenly they were on the run with no one to trust but each other. Only some quick thinking on Natasha’s part kept them from being captured.

“Put your arm around me, laugh at something I said.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

After escaping the mall, the pair was on a drive to New Jersey for a dive into Steve’s past. Every so often Natasha would glance over at him, trying to gauge his reaction to everything that had happened. But he kept his attention focused on the road, his own subtle glances her way not revealing anything behind his eyes.

“Can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer, but not answering is kind of like answering.”

“What?”

“What I your first kiss since 1945?”

“That bad, huh?"

“I didn’t say that.”

“That sounds like what you were implying.”

“I was just wondering how much practice you’ve had.”

“I don’t need practice.”

“Everybody needs practice.”

“It was not my first kiss since 1945. I’m 95, not dead.”

With that comment, Natasha couldn’t help but wonder who he’d been practicing with, especially since he’d repeatedly turned down every woman she suggested he ask out. After a beat, she continues her line of questioning.

“Still, nobody special though?”

“Believe it or not, it’s kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience.”

“Well make something up.”

“Like you?”

“The truth is a matter of circumstance, it’s not all things to all people, and neither am I.”

“It’s kind of hard to trust someone when you don’t know who they really are.”

“Right, who do you want me to be?”

“How about a friend?”

In their two years as partners, Natasha had kept herself closed off around Steve. She tried so hard to just be his partner that she didn’t realize she was developing certain feelings for him. For the first time in her life she was thinking she just might be able to have what Clint has. And when the soldier did turn down each date suggestion, she began to hope for more with him. But she never expected the answer he gave her. 

“There’s a chance you might be in the wrong business; Rogers.”

The word friend was like a punch to her gut. She dismissed it easily with a small smirk and turned her attention back to the window. Inside; her feelings were in turmoil, love was for children, and sometimes she just wanted to be childish. But she knew that if Steve ever found out about her past, what she’d done, he might see her as damaged, and that thought was more terrifying than anything she’d ever experienced. When they arrived at Camp Lehigh she maintained professionalism about their reason for being there. The discovery of the abandoned military installation being where S.H.I.E.L.D began was not surprising. 

“That’s Stark’s dad. Who’s the girl?”

Steve’s jaw clenched at the question and he turned away. Either he would answer at another time, or the memory of this particular woman was still too painful for him. 

“If you’re already working in a secret base, why would you need to hide the elevator?”

The spy quickly trained her phone on the keypad, accessing the code. They were taken to an underground level with ancient tech that she couldn’t believe had been where the signal came from. Everything after that was almost a blur. Zola had been recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D and his brain had been saved on thousands of miles of databanks. Thanks to Operation Paperclip, HYDRA had been given the resources to rebuild inside of the very organization that had been created to stop them. Then they were attacked after Zola stalled them. With little time until the missiles hit, Steve yanked open a grate and they both jumped in. He threw his shield up, taking the brunt of the debris falling, while Natasha was clinging to him as close as she possibly could. She didn’t remember much, slowly fading in and out of consciousness but she could hear Steve’s voice occasionally.

“Nat, just hang on. I’m taking us someplace safe.”

When she finally woke, she was then standing outside a house in D.C., still leaning on Steve’s side as he knocked. When the door opened, she only hoped they could trust the man she had seen when she picked Steve up for their mission.

“Hey man.”

“I hate to do this, but we need a place to lay low.”

“Everyone we know is trying to kill us.”

“Not everyone.”

Two words from Sam Wilson were all they needed to hear, and he let them in. A quick shower and a change of clothes helped Natasha feel somewhat more in control even though she was internally reeling. Even Steve could see it in her reflection in the mirror as he was cleaning himself up.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

A dubious glance at her told him she wasn’t, but he didn’t pressure her to tell him anything if she didn’t want to, but she surprised him by opening up anyway.

“When I joined S.H.I.E.L.D., I thought I was going straight. Turns out I just traded the K.G.B. for HYDRA. I guess I’m just not sure whose lies I’m telling anymore.”

“There’s a chance you might be in the wrong business.”

Natasha smiled at his repetition of her comment, but quickly turned back to serious conversation.

“I owe you.”

“It’s okay.”

“If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life, and you be honest with me, would you trust me to do it?”

“I would now, and I’m always honest.”

Steve’s answer was only slightly surprising, but she knew it was the truth. A small voice inside her head began telling her again that she could open up to him, allow him in and maybe they could be more than friends. But she didn’t get to say anything as Sam walked in, interrupting the moment. 

“I made breakfast, you know if you guys eat that sort of thing.”

The next few hours left them reeling, Sitwell was HYDRA, and The Winter Soldier was Steve’s best friend that had fallen from the train in 1944. Fury was alive, but didn’t know who he could trust. This left Natasha reeling, considering everything she had gone through for the man, and Steve was still the one standing by her.

“There’s a chance we can still salvage…,”

“We’re not salvaging anything. You gave me this mission and this is how it ends. It all goes, S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA, everything.”

Suddenly she was seeing Captain America. His tone was resolute and he wasn’t going to back down, not even from Fury. Despite everything, she was seeing him as he was, strong as steel and though not physically, he was reaching out for her, trusting her. Natasha could only reach back with her own eyes, and when Fury looked to her for support in attempting to save their organization, she still looked to Steve. Even Maria and Sam agreed with the Captain. Less than a day later, everything was in motion. Natasha was masquerading as Councilwoman Hawley, as Maria, Steve, and Sam took the command center. Steve’s speech over the intercom shocked them all, even Natasha, and she knew it was coming.

“The price of freedom is high, it always has been. And it’s a price I’m willing to pay. If I’m the only one so be it, but I’m willing to bet I’m not.”

While Steve and Sam infiltrated the helicarriers with Maria guiding them, Natasha was biding her time to bring Pierce down, and got the opportunity to do so when he went to shoot one of the Council. 

“Oh I’m sorry, did I step on your moment?”

She took down the members of the STRIKE team singlehandedly and began overriding the security protocols, preparing to dump HYDRA’s secrets onto the web.

“And S.H.I.E.L.D’s. Are you ready for the world to see you as you really are?”

If Pierce’s words caught Natasha off guard, she didn’t show it. She just looked back with an icy glare with her green eyes.

“Are you?”

The HYDRA leader then blathered on about how releasing the intelligence required two Alpha level members, and Natasha even had an answer for that as well.

“Don’t worry, company’s coming.”

Just as Natasha finished saying this, a helicopter was landing on the top floor. To Pierce’s surprise Nick Fury stepped out, injured but definitely alive. Everything changed again in that single instant, Natasha released all of the secrets HYDRA had been keeping, and blew all her covers in the process. Steve and Sam were successful in bringing down the helicarriers, and without an option, the Black Widow used one of her one discs to disable the biometric scanner. The moment of distraction allowed Fury to put two bullets into Pierce. Just a few days later, she, Fury, Sam and Steve were all meeting at the cemetery.

“Not going with him?”

“No.”

“Not staying here?”

“I blew all my covers. I gotta go work on a new one.”

For Natasha, it’s strange how things can change over such a short time. Like she told Steve, she was leaving to work on her covers. She was gone for a year, only to return when Tony got word on the scepter. During that time, she thought about Steve frequently, but still believed that with everything out there about her past, the only thing they could be was friends. She had even asked him to call that nurse. What she didn’t know was that Steve had developed feelings for her as well. At least until after Sokovia and ULTRON. He had tried to make things work with Sharon, but she wasn’t Natasha. Now just one year later, everything is about to change again. Even with her relationship with Steve being brand new, everything was about to change for them again. Natasha had agreed to play double agent for Fury on Stark’s side with the Accords. Secrecy was key, and she couldn’t tell Clint or Steve. Clint is a spy, so she believed he’d understand. But Steve was another story all together. 

“What am I doing? He’ll never forgive me for this.”

Natasha sat there on his bed, knowing she had to leave, but trying desperately to convince herself to stay. She sat there, clutching the old sweatshirt he had given her in one hand, while playing with his dog tags that she had appropriated, still hanging around her neck. Steeling herself for what lay ahead, she left the sweatshirt on his bed, and the letter she had written on his desk. She slipped out silently, knowing that she would be long gone before he even got back.

“Steve,

What I do now, I do because I believe it’s the best course of action. Tony, for all of his faults is correct when he says we should be held accountable for our actions. You’ve never pressured me to tell you anything about my past, but I know that this could be my way of wiping away all the red in my ledger. These past few months with you have been some of the best of my life. It’s funny, but as I write this, I think back to that undercover mission we had in Alabama. Maria thought she was being clever when she told us our cover identities. I mean come on, a boy from Brooklyn and an ex-Russian spy pretending to be wealthy ranchers? Who would have thought that would ever work? Thankfully we came out of that mission unscathed, and I think back to the song that was playing while we kept tabs on our suspect. It was the first time you actually asked me to dance.”

“You’re definitely one of a kind, tough, and you did fit right in the palm of my hand. You’ve got a fire and passion that I never knew I was looking for. Even though you’re an old fashioned son of a gun (you really need to update your slang), that is always the type of guy I was after, and I got one. You’re the rock I’ve been able to lean my head on, and even when my world was dark, you’ve been the spark that lights my way.” (God, I think I sound as sappy as you do sometimes.) “But I wouldn’t change any of what we’ve built together. I know the risk I’m taking in siding with Tony, and I only hope that you’ll be able to forgive me.”

“You’re my Remington;

Love, 

Natasha”


End file.
